Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
knot of
Today’s post is for the birds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found myself walking into an infestation of rock doves on 43rd street recently, and decided to keep shooting as I penetrated their crowd. Generally speaking, the rock doves – or pigeons – I encounter as I march about don’t always acknowledge my presence. Usually, I walk right through them with no reaction from their assemblage.
I’ve always found this odd, and it reinforces a sneaking suspicion I’ve had that I might actually be dead and just a spirit condemned to spend an eternity rattling my chains in Western Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Putting this theory to the test, I got them to react to me when I charged forward and right into their flock, which caused them to explode into the air. This confirmation of corporeal presence allowed me to indulge another one of my little ideations – the one where everything that’s happened to me in the last decade is some sort of last gasp in a hospital bed, symptomatic of an oxygen starved brain desperately clawing at the last milliseconds of life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I mean, how do you know what’s real? Are you dreaming that you’re reading this? Am I dreaming I wrote it? Are both of us part of somebody else’s nocturnal hallucinations? How can you know? Is that top still spinning?
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 4, 11:00 a.m. -1:30 p.m. –
DUPBO: Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
gateway temple
Bayonne Bridge progress, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Bayonne Bridge spans the Kill Van Kull waterway, connecting Staten Island with Bayonne, New Jersey. The fourth largest steel arch bridge upon the earth, it was designed by Othmar Amman.
Bayonne Bridge’s origins were commemorated in this 2010 post. The Bayonne Bridge, and the Frederick E Bouchard tug, were discussed in this 2012 post. Also back in 2012, I walked over the original Bayonne Bridge for the last time. In August of last year, I gathered the shots featured in this 2015 post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A new class of cargo ships, the Panamax, will soon become standard for global trade. These gargantua have necessitated the widening of the Panama Canal, and will be too large to fit under the Bayonne Bridge in its original configuration at high tide. Given that Port Elizabeth Newark is found just beyond the Bayonne Bridge, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has been forced to take steps.
Very expensive steps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A seperate project is underway to increase the draught of NY Harbor’s Ambrose Channel and Kill Van Kull to fifty feet instead of forty via dredging, but the roadway of the Bayonne Bridge is being replaced by a new one which will be high enough to accommodate the new class of cargo ships.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the shot above, you can see the project is well underway. The shots in today’s post were captured from the waters of the Kill Van Kull in May of 2016, btw. The new roadway is quite a bit higher than the original, and the older one is slated to be demolished.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unlike the Kosciuszko Bridge at Newtown Creek (which is being fully replaced), the project engineers have decided to retain the original steel arch structure and approaches to the span. Also, unlike the Kosciuszko project, I have no special access or knowledge of the project beyond some water access.
I can tell you that certain harbor and shipping industry magnates I know favored demolishing the span entirely, reasoning that another class of mega cargo ships is inevitable, and that access to Newark Bay is paramount for the economy of the Northeastern United States. Right now, Port Elizabeth Newark is the second largest port facility in the USA’s part of North America. Bayonne Bridge provides a critical vehicular path to Staten Island and Brooklyn via the Verrazano Bridge for the trade items which arrive there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From a purely esthetic point of view, the composition and positioning of the new roadway is pretty “fugly.” Amman is turning in his grave, I’m sure.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 4, 11:00 a.m. -1:30 p.m. –
DUPBO: Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
and dauntless
Things I’ve been lucky enough to see, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That Working Harbor Committee Students tour I mentioned the other day? One of the cool things I got to see while onboard was the FDNY’s Fireboat Three Forty Three doing some kind of exercise. There seemed to be a heck of a security presence, more so than usual, in Lower Manhattan and on the water last week.
They were probably performing security sweeps in preparation for Fleet Week, I imagine.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thrilling moment when your train arrives, which signals that the moment when the ordeal of standing on the platform is over, and that the ordeal of riding the train is about to begin. For some reason, the Lexington Avenue tunnels seem to be lit theatrically, which always lends the appearance of the 4 or 5 into 59th Street a certain dramatic flair.
Hey, @MTA – maybe that’s the answer to all your problems – theatrical lighting!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not sure if the shot above has been presented before, but when you’re talking about lighting, Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights does not disappoint.
Sorry for the short post today, but I’ve got to go get my notes ready for tonight’s Working Harbor “Brooklyn Waterfront: Past and Present” boat tour.
Upcoming Events and Tours
TONIGHT – Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
Saturday, June 4, 11:00 a.m. -1:30 p.m. –
DUPBO: Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
distance south
Some tugboat action, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Working Harbor Committee, which I’m both a Steering Committee member and the Official Photographer of, is all about education. Our motto and mission is to “educate the public about the Harbor of New York and New Jersey” after all. To this end, there’s a bunch of public tours – I’ll likely be conducting the Newtown Creek boat tour in the fall, and on Thursday of this week will be part of a trio of narrators on the “Brooklyn Waterfront: Past and Present” excursion. Last week, our education director, Meg Black, invited me along for one of the student tours which WHC produces.
There’s a gaggle of high school kids and their teachers onboard for these student tours, and the speakers WHC brought onboard were “Harbor Heavyweights” from the NYC EDC, Martime Association, Port Authority, and the like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The goal behind these student excursions is to provide a concrete experience that backs up the kids’s classroom work, and to encourage them to consider a career in the maritime world. For a lot of inner city kids, they aren’t even aware that the Harbor is out there waiting to hire them. There’s hundreds of individual career paths that you can choose from in the maritime world – everything from Homeland Security to working on ships. The great news about these waterfront jobs is that wherever there’s a Port, which is just about everywhere that you’d want to go, you’ve got a skill set which is highly transportable.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular tour left from Pier 11 in Manhattan about a NY Waterways Ferry. We headed over to the busy Kill Van Kull waterway separating Staten Island’s North Shore from Bayonne’s Chemical Coast and then visited Port Elizabeth Newark and the Global Marine Terminal in Newark Bay, after passing under the Bayonne Bridge. There was a parade of working vessels, some of which are pictured in today’s post.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
Saturday, June 4, 11:00 a.m. -1:30 p.m. –
DUPBO: Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
accident or evil
Things I’ve seen, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One decided to take a walk through Hallets Point, or Astoria Point as the Real Estate Industrial Complex has christened it, recently. The fires of gentrification have been stoked on the forbidden northern coast of Queens, as you may have heard. My purpose behind this walk revolved around path finding the probable right of way for the proposed BQX street car system, which I find an interesting intellectual challenge – an Einsteinian “thought experiment” if you will.
As a note, I have nothing to do with the project – instead I’m just curious about how they’re going to “thread the needle” through parks and housing projects to make this particular dream of NYC’s oligarchs come true.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Upon arriving back in my neighborhood on the southern border of Astoria, one encountered another member of the growing population of “not homeless” types who enjoy an afternoon tipple and then a short nap on the public way. Nostradamus like, your humble narrator is, and my predictions that the toleration of a population of drunken bums by the 114th precinct along Broadway would begin to draw in others is playing out. At least one bank has had to hire a night time security guard to vouchsafe its ATM laden lobby against them, and the steps of the Broadway/Steinway library have become an open air camp site. I look forward to seeing these folks riding and urinating on the BQX.
This fellow is a regular, and commonly observed sleeping and or manipulating some body part found deep in his the pantaloons. This shot was captured on the corner of Steinway Street and Broadway, which can hardly be considered an out of the way location.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Me? I’ve been a bit too busy to care about the “bum” situation in Astoria for the last few weeks. Boat excursions, walking tours, a never ending series of meetings – all have been consuming my time.
Speaking of, I’ll be speaking early tomorrow at the Greater Astoria Historic Society for “Queens Waterfront” symposium they’re conducting with the Waterfront Alliance. This will be an all day affair, but I’ll only be there in the morning as I’ve got to conduct a tour of the Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek in the afternoon.
Come with? Ticketing link below.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 